1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and particularly to a Serial ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) connector used in hard disk drives for signal transmission.
2. Description of Related Art
With the development of computer technology, a new product, named as a serial ATA (Advance Technology Attachment) electrical connector, is proposed for use as an interface of fast-talking drives, which will effectively improve the bandwidth, or capacity for data, between hard disk drives and other PC components, with respect to the parallel ATA connector. The serial ATA connector also has some other improvements comparing with the parallel ATA, such as low cost, low pin count, and low voltage requirement, and so on. In a word, the serial ATA connector provides a long-term solution for high performance, and easier, more flexible system design.
Commonly, a serial ATA connector mounted on a printed circuit board includes an insulative housing and a plurality of signal, power and ground contacts retained in the housing. Furthermore, with the miniaturization and dense trend of notebook computers, it is desired that the width of housing which is mounted on the printed circuit board could be as narrow as possible for reducing its layout space on the printed circuit board. However, if the housing becomes too narrow, which will be adversely affected the stability of the connector on the printed circuit board during the soldering process.
Hence, an improved electrical connector is required to overcome the disadvantages of the related art.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an electrical connector, that may be securely mounted onto printed a circuit board.
Accordingly, another object of the present invention is to provide an electrical connector having two ports for mating with two mating connector at the same time.
In order to achieve the objects set forth, an electrical connector of the present invention for being mounted on a printed circuit board comprises an insulative housing defining a number of passageways, and a number of contacts received in the passageways. The housing includes a first and a second base section arranged parallel to each other, a first and second mating section respectively projecting from the first and second base section, and an interconnect portion interconnected the first base section with the second base section. The interconnect portion comprises a retention portion that defines a receiving cavity. A board lock is received in the receiving cavity and comprises a base portion, a pair of barbs formed on opposite sides of the base portion and a pair of legs extending downwardly from a bottom end thereof for engaging with an inner wall of a hole defined in the printed circuit board, thereby pre-retaining the electrical connector onto the printed circuit board before soldering.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.